USA Gymnastics backs off plan to host competition at Karolyi Ranch

Since September, at least 95 women and girls have said former MSU doctor Larry Nassar sexually assaulted them as early as 1992. At least seven women now say they raised concerns about Nassar starting in the late 1990.
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Signs point the way to the Karolyi Ranch in New Waverly, Texas, in a file photo from 2012.(Photo: Dave Einsel, Special for USA TODAY)

USA Gymnastics has backed off a plan to host the 2018 World Team Trials at the Karolyi Ranch.

Under intense public criticism, USA Gymnastics had announced Thursday it terminated its agreement with the Texas facility and canceled plans for a national team training camp there next week. But an email obtained by IndyStar, sent hours after that public announcement, revealed the organization still planned to host its acrobatic gymnastics program's World Team Trials at the Karolyi Ranch.

On Friday, after IndyStar sought comment on the upcoming event at the ranch, USA Gymnastics issued a follow-up statement.

"The Acro World Team Trials scheduled for the first week in February has been relocated," spokeswomen Leslie King said Friday. "We are exploring alternative sites to host all training activities and camps until a permanent location is determined."

Kerry Perry, president and CEO of USA Gymnastics, said Thursday it had been her intention to terminate the agreement since she took over the helm of the Indianapolis-based organization in December.

"Our most important priority is our athletes, and their training environment must reflect this," she said in the statement. "We are committed to a culture that empowers and supports our athletes."

Prominent gymnasts, including Olympic gold medalists Aly Raisman and Simone Biles, had joined members of the public in calling for USA Gymnastics to stop using the facility.

Some of the more than 100 women who've accused longtime USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar of sexually assaulting them — and who are sharing their horror stories in a dayslong hearing that is being televised and streamed on the Internet — say they were abused at the Karolyi Ranch, the remote Texas facility that had been used as USA Gymnastics' National Team Training Center.

In a statement on Twitter and Instagram, Biles said it breaks her heart to think she would have to "continually return to the same training facility where I was abused" as she works toward competing in the 2020 Olympics.

In an interview with ESPN’s Outside the Lines, Raisman said USA Gymnastics' continued use of the ranch was proof of its indifference. During Nassar's criminal sentencing hearing Friday, she said USA Gymnastics had athletes training at the facility on the same day it announced it was parting ways.

"It's clear now, if you leave it up to these organizations, history is likely to repeat itself," Raisman said in court.

For 10 years, Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu said no one wanted to listen when she spoke about verbal and emotional abuse at the Karolyi Ranch.

At the time, Moceanu told IndyStar, she wasn't aware of the sexual abuse, but she now thinks the psychological abuse she experienced and witnessed helped pave the way for Nassar's crimes.

"I can't believe sometimes how long it's taken — the arrogance and the stupidity that was allowed to occur year after year after year," she said. "As long as they were winning, nobody cared. We could have saved the entire last two Olympic teams, when you think about it that way, from abuse if people listened just 10 years ago when I had the courage to speak up."